Today is the second rest day of the week. After an intense session playing at my badminton club, it’s still taking some time to recover. During the GGAB Fitness Training Regime, I was never sore for more than one day. Not training at the club for a while has undoubtedly hurt my fitness.
Before we get into more of the details for today, check out the Badminton Training Regime #2 – GGAB Fitness Training post, so that you can gain a better understanding of what the GGAB Fitness Training Regime is.
Let’s jump right in.
The Exercises
Of course, it’s a rest day, so no exercises were done. I did do an activity that helped a lot with relieving sore muscles and potential pain around the body.
What I did was have an Epsom salt bath.
Having a soak of a few minutes in hot water and Epsom salts is very relaxing. It doesn’t just make your muscles feel better, they also help a lot with falling asleep at night.
I didn’t just take it today either.
I took Epsom salt baths on other days too. If you have seen the GGAB Fitness Training Regime – Day 19 post, you’ll know that my back hurt like crazy. Having a hot water bath helped that a lot.
I also had one on day 20 of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime. This was the day of my return to my badminton club. I took after the training, and it was quite beneficial towards my feet which were developing blisters everywhere.
Epsom salt baths are really things that you can do on other days as well, not just rest days. In fact, what I found out was that they help the most when the pain and sore feelings are at their height. So doing them right after training feels quite lovely.
Unfortunately, I did not spend much time stretching, and I haven’t bought a foam roller to do any foam rolling yet.
What was more important though was diet and sleep.
See Some Other Activities To Do For Recovery After Intense Training!
Diet and Sleep
I’m going to talk about our diet and sleep a little more generally because it’s what happened in 3 days that’s much more interesting than what I did today.
I mean for today’s diet and sleep, things were pretty good. Although I slept later during the night, about 12 AM the day before, I was able to wake up earlier at around 8 AM.
This led to my 3 meals in the day, although each of them was relatively small. I had a few croissants for breakfast, some yakisoba for lunch, and then rice with lamb and carrots for dinner.
Over the 3 days before, including today, things are slowly changing for the better. I’m consistently waking up at 8 AM now, which allows for my three meals as well as more time for productivity gains.
I have also been using power naps occasionally. These power naps have been great for refreshing myself so that I can do more. It doesn’t help as much with actually recovering muscles because you don’t get to enter the deep sleep phase where your body sends out the growth hormones, but the energy is quite good.
It’s like taking 5-hour energy without the sugar crash.
Especially with my day starting earlier and earlier, these power naps will come in handy.
Now that it’s my last week of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime, it’s time to push myself in terms of exercising, but also with my daily habits.
Thoughts and Feelings
In today’s thoughts and feelings section, I just want to talk about how important recovery is. And it’s not just about the “wear and repair” and not overworking yourself kind of thing, it’s going to be about how you need to improve your recovery daily.
Which means recovery even when it’s an exercise day. I’ve been splitting up the days into exercise and rest days, but in reality, every day needs you to maintain good sleep, eat lots, and do whatever else you have to do.
And this needs to be emphasized a little more.
After all, you feel the pain most right after exercising, and your muscles are the most adaptable to change during that time. This is when you should be rolling and stretching muscles.
Although I didn’t work much stretching and rolling into my routines, doing the stretches help maintain muscle range and flexibility. This enables you to reduce the chance of injury at a much higher degree.
It will also feel a lot better and be much better for you if you’re able to incorporate good rest and recovery tactics into your daily plans, especially if you’re reaching the levels where you are training almost every single day.
Like if we look at pro players, many train 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. They don’t have a single opening during the week where two days are opened up solely for rest.
How they keep up is by repairing and strengthening their muscles as soon as possible. This means getting the right nutrients every day and having long hours of rest. Most pro players won’t be like me and sleep very late.
Just my two cents for today. These are things I will need to work on for myself, and I will spend as time working on this.
Progress
Now for the growth. In the pictures, it actually seems like we got a little bit fatter due to sitting down for 2 days straight. Here are the stats:
Person 1:
Weight: 150 lbs
Person 2:
Weight: 128 lbs
I’ll likely want to still stay active during my rest days. Doing things like light walking or jogging will undoubtedly help, and I am thinking about including these kinds of things into my future training.
Conclusion
Day 22 of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime has been completed. This is one of the last rest days in the entire training regime!
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below, and I’ll be willing to respond. As always, good luck in your games and have a great day!